Anxious Crootin: Looking ahead to All-American game rosters

Submitted by DrMantisToboggan on

A little bored before the bowls start today, but still in the Crootin' spirit so I decided to peek at the high school All-American game rosters. Looking at the rosters for the two games - U.S. Army and Under Armour - and this year could be our most impressive presence at the all-star events, especially the Army game. If we hit on every recruit attending the US Army game, it would give us 10 commits playing in the contest, a number higher than any I can remember since I started to follow recruiting. The "extremely Michigan-related" players for each game are below, with commits in bold.

 

U.S. Army All-American Bowl

Tarik Black

Willie Gay

Deron Irving-Bey

Donovon Peoples-Jones

Aubrey Solomon

Ambry Thomas

Chuck Filiaga

Najee Harris

Dylan McCaffrey

Jay Tufele

 

Under Armour All-American Game

Kai-Leon Herbert

Luiji Vilain

Jaylen Kelly-Powell

Cesar Ruiz

Kwity Paye

Drew Singleton

 

Oost

December 17th, 2016 at 12:39 PM ^

Two that surprise me are Deron Irving-Bey and Kwity Paye, given both aren't as highly ranked by the services. would be interesting to see if they turn in good performances if they get re-ranked.

WholeMilk

December 17th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^

A couple of years ago it looked like the UA game was taking over, but it looks like the Army AA game has gained back some ground. What happened, I wonder? Did the novelty just wear off for the UA game?

schreibee

December 17th, 2016 at 8:02 PM ^

I don't know if you looked at the Najee Harris series from out here in the SF Chronicle that I believe was linked in this blog, but those two games/apparel companies waged serious war over which game Najee would play in, ergo which apparel he would be associated with.

If the Army game seemed to be getting passed by, it's probably that they had to up their game after UA came along and started poaching. Najee went from saying he'd play in the AA to the UA and back to AA during his recruitment.

It's actually a little similar to how Saban turned up the heat on Najee's recruitment after Harbs "chain gang" episode made national news.

Glad we're not pushing him as hard  to come here as UA and adidas did to play in their games. I think he'd be really turned off.